One Is The Loneliest Number
by Indigo2831
Summary: Set any time after 8.12, 'As Time Goes By.' With a mane like that, it was only a matter of time before Sam got kidnapped by a witch and locked in a tower. Loosely based on the fairy tale, Rapunzel. Slightly cracky.
Back again! I'm missing the show like crazy! I received an awesome anonymous prompt for a mini-fic, and I liked it so much, I wrote a full-length fic that is loosely based on the 'Rapunzel' fairy tale: _Sam and Dean go to investigate a case similar to the one in "I Believe the Children Are Our Future", so based on Fairy Tales. For whatever reason Sam and Dean get separated and then Sam disappears. After a panicked search for Sam, Dean finds him trapped at the top of a tower. Que an amused Dean and a VERY unamused Sam. Bonus points for Dean making Rapunzel jokes about Sam hair._

* * *

The leaf-less branches curling and arched in spindles as if luring Sam along the way as he explored the forty-mile parcel of land surrounding the bunker.

Through the negative space between the trees, sat a pillar of rounded stone festooned in ropes of dried ivy that sparkled with silver. Sam's excitement materialized in a puff of frost as he regarded the peculiar structure that wasn't an any schematics in the bunker's library. It looked like the tower of a castle, complete with rustic battlements at its apex. He ventured through smears of mud and melting snow to inspect the tower of stacked stone, and found that he green poking through the dead-brown grasses, stretching towards the sun, were pungent and rare herbs growing wild. Herbs that would have otherwise cost him hundreds of dollars and a day's drive. With a smile of delight, Sam plucked shoots of bugweed and buds of elderflower from the soil, maintaining the roots so he could grow them in pots inside the bunker. "You'll smell much better than Dean's socks," Sam muttered.

Finding herbs on this property didn't strike Sam as odd anymore. After months of exploring the archives, the bunker and now the grounds, it was evident the Men of Letters had designed the bunker as a self-sustaining compound, a safe haven and an arsenal in the fight against evil. Sam had no problem reaping the benefits of their astounding foresight.

The sun on his back, a brisk wind in the trees, and the security of the bunker lowering his guard, Sam didn't even hear anyone approaching until a lithe shadow glided over the shorn divots of earth from his careful harvest. Sam canted his head just enough to get a blurry image of a woman, voluminous curly dark hair, berry lips twitching in anger. "Those. Are. Not. Yours, Trepasser."

Sam didn't have time to offer apologies or return the plants. Something struck him in the face with enough force to whip his head back and sending the purloined plants and blossoms into the air in a stripes of emerald and pink.

And then there was just black.

-SPN-

As soon as Dean yanked Sam out of whatever disaster he'd faceplanted into, he was getting him microchipped like designer puppy. Sam had gone out on one of his exploration missions, and hadn't returned. Two days ago. With no monster to kill, Dean was flirting with insanity. Sam hadn't been forced to go to ground, so a girl scout could follow the tracks left by his size 15 clodhoppers. The only problem was they abruptly ended nearly three miles from the bunker as if Sam had been plucked the air. _They just stopped._

Dean circled the site for the twentieth time, running through anything supernatural that had wings or was powerful enough to snatch a sasquatch clear off the ground. Once again, he found nothing but the same scraggly weeds and freezing mud and no more answers than he had on the last fruitless loop.

Night had plummeted, steeping the sky in a morose marbled blue, dragging the temperature down with it. The cold leeched through his many layers, gleefully teasing out shivers of his muscles. He sniffed at the air, catching vapors of elderflower and bugweed, which only meant one thing: _Witches._

Dean adjusted the trajectory of his flashlight to the trees instead of the ground. The beam illuminated a long-overdue lead. "Yahtzee!"

Their trunks surrounding the clearing bore the markings of witchcraft etched into the trunks. Dean couldn't read them—only Grand Coven witches and probably Sam could decipher those runes—but it didn't matter. Dean aimed and fired his shotgun one-handed, grimacing at the shock of the recoil through his half-frozen muscles. The buckshot pelted a cluster of thin saplings, splintering their trunks, obliterating the carvings.

The result was more awesome than Dean anticipated, the moonlight rippled and kaleidoscoped like a giant wobbling funhouse mirror. There was a comically earsplitting pop that Dean had associated with the breaking of a cloaking spell. A busted column of stone materialized before him, a mere two three feet from where he'd been standing.

The chaotic winds hadn't even cleared before Dean bolted towards the tower, hollering Sam's name.

He ran around it twice, skidding and slipping in the slushy, rutted ground, arms flailing for balance, but there was no entrance.

Feathering down over his own dragging breaths and swelling panic was a feeble, sandpapery variation of Sam's voice that brought tears to Dean's eyes and amplified his rage. " _hello?..._ hellpme...please…"

"SAMMY! I'm here! I'm gonna help you...tell me how to get in!"

Silence.

"Sonuvabitch! ANSWER ME, SAM!" Dean pedaled backwards.

On the north face of the tower about 15 feet up was crumbled-away section of wall that he just might fit through. He'd been scaling his up way to girl's bedrooms since 1994; how different could this be? "I'm comin', Sammy!" Dean tucked away the sawed-off and hopped up, snagging the centimeters-thin ridge of stone three feet above his head.

"...witch...there's a witch, Dean."

"There's always a friggin' witch," he scowled, heaving himself up another foot. "This would be a lot easier if your hair were longer, man," he panted, "I'd climb right up."

Dean was closer now, and he could hear the rattle of heavy chains and Sam's groggy snort of disbelief. "Never tell me t'cut it again."

The blazingly snarky response was lost in a bitten off-scream as his foot slipped on an ice-shellacked foothold, and he lost his footing completely. The fall felt like tumbling for stories, when he actually descended the length of his body, biting his tongue from the pain ripping through his back, shoulder and arm as he hung from the tips of his three fingers. Two cracked down the middle.

Sam's fear-stricken calls descended into a string of splintered wheezing coughs that worried him a bit more than a six-foot fall. He had learned to be pragmatic in the face of the hell's nastiest beasts, so he tamped down the surge of adrenaline and instinct telling him to flail and fight, and instead afforded himself the time to patiently readjust his grip. With one monkey-esque swing upwards and two minutes later and Dean was stuffing himself through the hole in the side of the tower.

The interior was just as spartan in design as the exterior, just a scooped out cavern of rock with pairs of manacles hammered into the stone.

It would've been cool to continue the trash-talk as if Dean hadn't come dangerously close to breaking both legs but Sam sat too-still on the floor, head flung forward, his glorious mane dropping around his faces in brown clumps crystallized with ice, clearly wasn't up for conversation or bravado.

Dean swept his hair back, wincing at the wrecked sight of his little brother, who was all ashen skin, pathetically quivering muscles and a shocking dearth of warmth. His forehead was knotted and swollen, the eyebrow cleaved by a nasty gash while the cheek was still crusted with flaking dried blood. Sam was _out_ despite being coherent and talking a few minutes earlier. Blood seeped from the manacles pinning his arms to the wall, and his long legs were twisted and limp, a shoe rucked off. Dean grimly realized that Sam had passed out from the effort of trying to break free and help _him_.

"Hang on, Sammy, I'm going to get you out."

Two days in the elements without food or water could do in even the best survivalist, and cavern stunk of burnt herbs and smoke, which meant spellwork had come into play, probably for torture. Dean produced a flask of holy water, and tilted Sam's head back, patting his cheeks firmly. "Up and at 'em, Sammy. C'mon, wake up. This ain't Sleeping Beauty, and I ain't kissin' you."

Sam's Adam's apple bobbed and his dried lips parted. Dean gently trickled some water into his mouth. Sam's eyes slit open to confirm Dean's presence before swallowing. Dean let him drain the flask and began working on the shackles. "Where's the bitch who did this to you?"

"Comes 'n goes," Sam muttered, teeth chattering. "She's a sentry, _p_ _owerful_."

"And she's protecting this pile of rubble? I'm almost gonna feel bad killing her." One mangled wrist was freed, torn open, bloody and bruised. " _Almost_."

There was a twist of light, a ruffle of wind, and the witch stood before him, leaning on her crystal topped cane. She was beautiful in the way a panther was ferocious, but she didn't look like any witch Dean had ever seen. The velvet cape wasn't a surprise, but the trendy jumpsuit, the bangin' body beneath it, the youthful glow of brown cheeks, an septum piercing definitely were. She lifted a shaped eyebrow when Dean drew his .45. He fired three shots center mass without hesitation, and aimed a killshot at her forehead just for spite. The witch stamped her cane against the stone floor, and the bullets dissolved in mid-air. She blew the plumes of gunpowder and grit side, unbothered. "Men, always with the guns. I've seen bigger, by the way."

Cursing, Dean groped for his shotgun, "I'll show you bigger."

Sam's freed arm clumsily grabbed Dean's collar to stop him. "Don't anger it," he whispered harshly. His eyes flickered to her, and went distinctively puppy. "Jus' wanna go home."

She tucked a purple-tipped curl behind her ear. "I'm not convinced you've learned your lesson yet. _You do not take what is not yours._ Something else men seem to have a hard time learning." Her gaze bore deeply into Dean.

He blanched, and tried to make himself small and unthreatening. "We totally understand. No means no. Um…women's right to choose. Break the glass ceiling. I respect all of that," he said. "Miss, Sammy's in bad shape. He's not gonna last much longer up here."

"So be it. I'm doing work that's far greater than you or Samuel here could understand. He will be released to you when his sentence is up, assuming he survives. Now if you want to join him," she bared her teeth, "that can be arranged."

Sam sputtered into horror and he shoved Dean towards the window with strength he didn't have. "Dean... _gogogo_. You gotta get out of here..."

"Bitch, please, when have I ever done what I'm told, especially from a chick—I'm sorry- _person_ with purple hair," he snapped at Sam. "If I'm gonna do handcuffs, do you have anything in the pink, fuzzy variety?"

Her beautiful face remained expressionless, save for the rage glinting in dark brown eyes, heavily rimmed in eyeliner. She wielded her cane not like a crutch but a weapon.

Dean scooted forward, instinctively shielding Sam from her treachery and switched tactics. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Sarcasm, it's a defense mechanism, you know—crappy childhood and all that. We live nearby, and we weren't aware that you were...on duty. Sam didn't mean to break your rules, and I just came to help my brother. You can imagine how shocked I was to find him hurt. I'm protective over my little brother as you are of your...cat, I'm guessing."

The orb on her cane flashed red. Dean was flung against the wall by invisible force, his hand magicked into the manacle he just freed Sam from.

"You deserved that," Sam groused.

"I know," Dean groaned, coughing.

"I protect _these lands,_ specifically the herbs planted here by the secret society that created it and summoned me. He was ripping them up by the roots!"

Sam gasped while Dean's eyes widened. "The Men Of Letters?" He ventured, and Dean followed it up with, "such a sexist name," and a disarming smile.

She seemed suspicious yet intrigued. "You've heard of them?"

" _We're legacies_ ," Sam and Dean said simultaneously.

A disgusted scoff turned into the very laughter Dean was trying to court earlier. "They were wiped out in a massacre some fifty years ago, there are no legacies."

Dean patted down his pockets with his free hand while Sam explained. "Our grandfather was a member, Henry Winchester. He knew his way around a cauldron too, so much that he traveled through time to entrust us with that," he said as Dean produced the key to the bunker.

The witch inspected the ornate key for a prolonged, tense moment before she dropped her cane and practically dove towards Sam. Dean groped for his gun, but she buzzed through a few lines of French, and the shackles popped open with a rusty clank, Dean's followed.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was just…doing my job. I've been here for decades, ya know, and there's been _nothing_. No demons, no enemies, no people. Imagine being keyed up for some epic attack for years, and the only thing that happens is your bosses die and you're stuck on perpetual red alert. It's enough to drive a witch mad, you know. I'm so sorry."

Sam blinked at the witch, and Dean could see him attempting to decipher her level of crazy before risking an answer. He finally settled on, "it's cool," as she took off her velvet cape and swaddled him in it.

"My name is Gothel…Goth," she said to them both, "and I haven't had company in a long time." Something about the pitch of her voice broke Sam's heart.

Retrieving her cane, she waved it about the desolate dwelling of rock, and the entire room transformed into a cozy little space with overstuffed armchairs and a fireplace churning out a dry, blissful heat with a big pot of bubbling stew. Together, they helped Sam over to the armchair. And she used the very herbs Sam had stolen to make an enchanted poultice for his wrists and face.

The sheer bizarreness of the situation seemed to rouse Sam, and a big bowl of stew sustained it. "We can release you from your sentry, if you want, Goth."

"As long as you don't go around chaining dudes up in your basement…" Dean chimed in.

"Even if they're bad?"

Dean pondered it. "Well, if they killed someone or are kiddie pervs, go nuts. Like actual crimes, real evil."

"I don't really want to go…now that there are people here, my work is important again."

Sam glanced at Dean, who shrugged. "The same rules apply if you stay."

She nodded. "Can I ask for one more thing, though?"

"What's that?" Dean wondered as he helped Sam to his feet and inched towards the window.

"That you'll visit me? I mean, not for awhile because ya know, I held you prisoner and stuff, but some day?"

Dean opened to his mouth to reject her invitation with obscenities that would make Crowley blush, but Sam cut him off. "I don't see why not."

Goth grinned and possibly squeaked with joy. Dean marveled at Sam's practicality. A happy witch was a good asset. More than that, she'd withstood decades without companionship. Without a partner. Dean hadn't lasted more than a year.

Goth tapped the crystal knob of cane against the side of the tower. Dean felt a rush of vertigo, like he did on high-powered elevators. Sam swayed, all but dead on his feet, leaning into Dean's grip. The tower had conveniently sank to ground level. He forwent the world's most awkward goodbye by shuffling Sam out, who was still clad in Goth's ridiculous cape. Together, they ventured through the humming blues of dawn towards the bunker.

"On a scale of 'Killer Bees' to 'Lucifer In A Bikini,' how screwed up are you gonna be from this?"

Sam rubbed at the fraying bandages over his wrists, the skin below tingled with supernaturally accelerated healing. He suspected his bruises and cuts would be gone by morning, but the days of isolation and cold wouldn't. Truthfully, the spells Goth had cast on him were far better than the stretches of sobriety, where he was left with nothing but a whirring mind and lifetimes of guilt and trauma. "Giant Flaming Pissed Off Teddy," he said with a forced smile.

Dean draped Sam's arm around his neck, offering closeness in addition to his strength. "I'll stow the teasing for awhile then, Samuzel."

 _Fin._


End file.
